Brown Bread Ice Cream!!

Yes Brown Bread Ice Cream - I have not made ice cream for the blog before - mostly because I haven't come across a specifically British recipe for ice cream - but I found one and this is it. Victorian cooks developed the recipe to use up leftover brown bread from the day before - ever conscious of not being wasteful. I used a custard base for the ice cream because I'm a custard base kind of girl - especially if you can use duck egg yolks - they are divine in ice cream. It is not too sweet - which I like in an ice cream.

I also made my own brown bread from King Arthur's No Knead Brown Bread recipe HERE - it was excellent and SO easy to make, to be honest it tasted almost a little cakey itself so it was a perfect bread to use. I used half the recipe, did it in weight because that is so much more reliable, I left out the dried milk because I didn't have it and I was brave and didn't replace it with anything and replaced the orange juice with more water - just because I didn't have orange juice around - you can go whichever way you want, but of course! 

Six delicious ingredients

CINNAMONY BREAD CRUMBS:

4ozs bread crumbs - just tear the bread into the size of pieces you see above - don't make the breadcrumbs in a blender - the crumbs will be too small and you want them a nice size to provide the crunch in the finished ice cream

2oz butter - I would definitely use salted as it gives that nice pop with the caramel on the crumbs

1 teaspoon cinnamon - I am not a big cinnamon person so I did less than the recipes called for (I made an amalgamation of recipes) you can add maybe another 1/2 teaspoon if you are big on the flavour.

4 tablespoons turbinado/brown sugar

1. Melt the butter, sugar and cinnamon in a frying pan until it sizzles then add the crumbs and stir around until you have a really nice crisp and brown on the crumbs as below:

Sizzling in the pan!

The finished crunchy, yummy cinnamony deliciousness - let them cool after they have fried and really try hard not to eat them all - don't forget you need them for the ice cream!!

CUSTARD BASE adapted from Martha

20 fluid ounces/ 2 1/2 cups half and half

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

6 oz/ 3/4 cup brown sugar

4 egg yolks - either hen or duck - if the duck eggs are big you could get away with 3 

1. Beat together the egg yolks, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.

2. Gently heat the half and half in a saucepan to almost boiling.

4. Stir a little of the hot milk into the egg mix and then a bit more to temper the eggs.

5.  Then slowly whisk the egg, sugar, vanilla into the hot 1/2 and 1/2 in the saucepan.

6. Stir and stir and stir with a wooden spoon - if you stop stirring the custard will curdle and all will be lost - until it starts to thicken and coats the back of the spoon - take the spoon out of the custard, turn the spoon over, run your finger through the custard and if the line doesn't fill back in it is ready.

7. Take off the heat immediately and put the pan into a bowl of cool water and stir until the custard starts to cool. Cool completely and then pop into your ice cream maker and follow your machines instructions to make a divine ice cream. 

Now all you have to do is stir the breadcrumbs into the ice cream and Bob's your Uncle you've got Brown Bread Ice Cream!! It's delicious - I let mine sit in the freezer overnight and the crunchy bits got just a little soft - which I like - it is so good!!!

If you make it let me know and feel free to post pictures on my Facebook page.

HAPPY CHURNING!!

Let's make a mess - an Eton one of course!!

SIMPLE, LUSCIOUS, DELICIOUS!

But why is it called Eton Mess? Because it is traditionally served at the Eton College annual cricket game against the students of Winchester College. The word mess I would suspect refers to the look of the dish which is very rustic and free form but that part cannot be confirmed through my Googling. Strawberries are the traditional fruit used in an Eton Mess, for it is England after all, but I have chosen to use raspberries as there were no decent strawberries to be had and then along came some excellently priced and highly desirable cherries so I mixed the two - and why not?

It is so simple, with three main ingredients, and disarmingly charming! ...and if you choose to use purchased meringues instead of making them well then it's also awfully easy - just a matter of whipping cream, macerating berries and assembling your mess!

Always read through the recipe first to know what you need, and what you need to do and when.

You will need the following for one large serving or two small - I ate the whole thing above top and am now sitting here feeling a little overwhelmed so I suggest, if you can control yourself, to make this for two people - or one person at two sittings :) Of course you can double, triple or more for a crowd and everything will work just as well.

1 cup heavy/double cream - buy the very best you can, whipped with a couple of tablespoons of sugar (less or more to taste, your choice) and a teaspoon of vanilla. Return to the fridge after you have whipped it.

6-8ozs of your chosen fruit - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries - cooked gooseberries if you can find them - and I used cherries because I love them so - tossed with a good tablespoon of sugar and macerated for a couple of hours until the juices run.

4 small meringues either made or bought - recipe follows if you want to make your own

This ingredient list is very loose you can have more or less of whatever you want and it will still taste marvellous!

Here are my cherries and raspberries macerating happily

MERINGUE RECIPE: Try to make on a dry day - humidity and thunderstorms can either effect the consistency of the beaten eggs or make them curdle - so the dryer the day the better - my day was a little humid and they turned out a little chewier than I personally like but they were still very good.
 

Set the oven at 250F – nice and low. Cover your baking tray with a sheet of parchment or greaseproof paper – no need to grease the paper.

INGREDIENTS:

2 egg whites at room temperature

4 ozs sugar...fine if don't want your meringues to be gritty - mine were a bit gritty because I use organic sugar from the Belfast Coop and it doesn't come in fine - and I am OK with a little grittiness in my meringues

1/2 teaspoon of vinegar

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1. Whip the egg whites until stiff

2. Add sugar 2 tablespoons at a time and whip, whip, whip until all the sugar has been added and the result is glossy and dense and divine as the picture below.

After much whipping you end up with a lovely dense deliciousness about the consistency of really good mayonnaise.

3. Mix vinegar and vanilla together in a small bowl and then gently fold into the egg white and sugar confection.

4. Pile dollops of meringue onto parchment and spread out into rough and rustic rounds for this is called a mess and the meringues end up being broken apart so their appearance is not important!

This was the first batch I made - they looked great going in the oven but they just did not set up - they stayed bouncy and soft - took me a while to back track and eventually discover I had only put in half the amount of sugar I should have done - so if you halve or double recipes do make sure you get the quantities right!

5. Bake in a 250F oven for about an hour and a half then turn oven off and leave meringues in there to cool - this is for a meringue that still has some softness and chew in the centre - if, like me, you prefer a meringue that is like ceramic (and yes I know that is not fashionable because of French macaron everyone wants a bit of chew) then you can cook for another hour making sure that they do not brown - so check on them occasionally.

The second batch baked to perfection!

So you have sweetened whipped cream, your chosen macerated berries and your perfect meringues - heaven is just a short while away!

TO ASSEMBLE Choose an attractive vessel for your ambrosial delight - plop some whipped cream in the bottom, crush a couple of meringues over this, dollop half the fruit over that and repeat. And now you have an ETON MESS - to make it even more perfect I like to let the flavours meld a little - pop in the fridge for about an hour - take out, allow to warm a little and dig in!!

Please do let me know if you try this and what you think and if you make one why not post your pictures and thoughts on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/PatriciaSheaDesigns

Here are some pictures of the day lilies blooming in my garden right now - aren't they the most wonderful colours and look at the red leaves on the two different individual ones - they are the opposite formation from one another!

Happy messing about everyone!

If perchance you like my jaunty little Union Jack design as seen in the top picture here's a link to many and varied items adorned with such at my CafePress shop. Cheers!

The Humble Flowers of Blueberry Hill

My house is right next to a blueberry barren and when the weather is good I wander up there and see the whole of the top of Penobscot Bay laid out before me, including Blue Hill across the bay. Commercially blueberries only fruit every second year and this is the off year so there are few blueberries to be seen but lately I've been paying attention to the tiny, quiet humble little flowers up there and today I photographed some of them as seen below - aren't they pretty - I don't even know the names of most of them - do you?

A snowflake in July? The lovely bobbing Queen Anne's Lace are here in full force - wafting  around like spinning plates by the side of the roads and highways - they have a lovely old fashioned fragrance that reminds me of Mimosa.

Is this Purple Vetch?

A glowing Black Eyed Susan

A teeny tiny daisy that grows about 3.5 feet tall and smells so deliciously of light lemon

A type of Spirea perhaps?

What are these little bell like flowers?

Good old Black Eyed Susan's against the faraway hills.

Queen Anne's lace in the making - each 'bud' has one large leaf to the side.

A real close up of the Queen Anne's Lace - again very wintery I think

I don't know which kind of flower this used to be but the basket weave  in the centre there is near perfect

And my fave - the lovely little clover - awww!!

On the way back down I did espy a few blueberries nestling in the leaves -  I think the fox, coyote, turkey and deer may get to enjoy them.

August is nearly here - what delight should I make for my next recipe - it should be something with blueberries methinks!!

St. Leonard's Custard Pudding

Here is the first recipe from my newly acquired book “The Etiquette of English Puddings” published by Copper Beech Publishing and gifted to me by my dear friend Tabby (aka talented photographer Marcie Jan Bronstein) - St Leonard’s Custard Pudding – but isn’t it really a pie or tart – here we go again with the definition of pudding! My partner James is so confused at this point – he’s always asking "…and is THAT a pudding?” Simpler to say yes Dear it’s a pudding and anything you have for dessert in the UK is also a pudding. Ah – the vagaries of pudding…

THE RECIPE
This recipe made two pies in oval dishes 6" x 4" with a little filling to spare.

          

First make the Easy Peasy crust from Let Them Eat Cake Bakers in Belfast, Maine:

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST: I made 10 miniature tarts from the recipe here:

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingredients and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5. Tear off pieces of the dough and push into the pie dishes until you have somewhat evenly covered them, then bob in the fridge until you are ready to use them - always keep pie crust as cold as you can and your pie crust and your taste buds will thank you most heartily!

Turn on your oven to 325F.

For the custard:

1 rounded tablespoon of white flour

2 oz unsalted butter

10 fluid ounces whole milk

2 oz sugar

Grated zest of one lemon or a good grating of nutmeg – I like nutmeg in my custard – it’s very traditional and reminds me of the custard tarts I had with a good cuppa for elevenses (eleven o’clock break)  at art school.

3 egg yolks whisked together

For the meringue: 

3 egg whites at room temperature - it's amazing the difference in the volume and texture between eggs right out of the 'fridge and room temp eggs - on really hot days though don't leave them out too long to spoil:))

2 tablespoons icing/confectioner’s sugar.

Melt the butter in a wide pan on the stove, when it is sizzling add the flour and whisk like a madman to make sure there are no lumps then turn the heat to low – gradually add the milk and whisk constantly to get a nice smooth sauce, add the sugar and continue to cook until it thickens well then take off the stove and whisk or stir until almost completely cool. When cooler stir in the egg yolks. Set aside for a few minutes while you get the pastry cases ready.

Put a nice rounded teaspoon of jam – your choice – raspberry tends to be a big fave in England – in each pastry shell and smooth evenly over the bottom.

Now fill your cases with the lovely custard – you can go almost to the brim as this mixture does not rise in the baking.

My recipe said simply bake for one hour – with no indication of temperature so I choose 325F as I didn’t want the custard to bake too fast and get rubbery.

After about 35 minutes whisk the egg whites until somewhat stiff – then add the sugar in two goes and whisk in between until stiff. After 50 minutes check to see if the custard is setting – wobble a bit and if the middle is still a bit wobbly it’s good to now add the meringue.

Remove from the oven and dollop goodly amounts of meringue on the top – as you can see somehow my meringue was not quite right because somewhere lurking either in my bowl or on my whisk was the tiniest amount of fat and that not only stops the whites from gaining their highest volume but also makes them look curdley and not perfect – to avoid this wash all our equipment in very hot water and suds and then to go the extra mile rinse your equipment with white vinegar too. Naughty me didn’t heed my own advise BUT the meringue was still tasty if a little flat and unattractive.

Return pies to oven and allow to brown nicely – should be another 10 minutes or so.

Remove from oven and allow to cool and then if you like your custard cold like me bob them in the fridge.

These ‘puddings’ were very good and I will make them again. I don’t know why they are called St. Leonard’s Puddings – the only reference I could find mentioned the town of St. Leonard in Hasting’s Sussex but thy didn’t mention why the pudding is associated with the town.

We have had a simply gorgeous stretch of weather here in Maine - dry, hot and very Mediterranean - yesterday these lilies bloomed, aren't they lovely?

And of course today is Bastille Day in France - a country where the art of pastry making is truly an ART and celebrated as such. Vive La France!

Happy July 4th 2012!

Hooray for the RED, WHITE and BLUE - sorry I couldn't do the white in white or you wouldn't have seen it!!

We are having lovely mild weather in Maine - cool, a bit breezy and overcast - really quite delightful. Here's hoping everyone has a fun and delicious day - what will you be eating, making or baking for your July 4th pudding??

Silly Simple Strawberry Tarts for July 4th

Oh my goodness - these tarts are SO VERY GOOD and so ridiculously easy - to be honest one could happily forget the tart part and just eat the white chocolate cream filling with strawberries. If you go ahead and make this recipe you will think I am the bees knees for finding it in the June issue of British Country Living - the best magazine IN THE WORLD!!!

YOU DO NEED TO START THIS RECIPE THE DAY BEFORE YOU WANT TO EAT IT - because the cream needs that much time to set up and achieve it's delightfully luxurious and divine consistency - you can bake the tarts cases the day before too and keep them in an air tight container overnight!!

For the tart crust - I made baby tarts as you can see - if you want to make one tart this recipe is for a deep 8"/20cm radius tart pan - other wise this makes about 10 mini tarts - of course that depends on the size of your minis! I made mine with Pate Brisee from Martha but I made it too thick and I think the following recipe would be so much better as it is easier to make thinner and also doesn't shrink - which is important if you're using the mini cases!! It is from my friend Lindsey at Let Them Eat Cake Bakers in Belfast.

Pre-heat your oven to 325F...thank you!!

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST: I made 10 miniature tarts from the recipe here:

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingredients and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5.My mini tart cases are about 1 1/2" round so I rolled a ball of dough about the size of a large walnut and popped one into each case.

 This is too thick - do try to make it thinner than this, you'll thank me for it :)

Allow the tart cases to cool completely then melt some white chocolate - about 2oz - melt in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water and be careful not to get any water in the chocolate or it will seize and that's no fun!!! Then coat the pastry cases with a nice slather of white chocolate.

With their coating of white chocolate

Now for the best part WHITE CHOCOLATE CREAM - so easy!!!

9 oz neufchatel cheese (I used this) OR cream cheese would work as well - the original recipe called for marscapone but I couldn't bring myself to spend nearly $7 on a container of it!! but if you want something really special then use the marscapone!

7oz white chocolate - luckily I can buy Callebaut callets (little dots) at the Belfast Coop for a very good price - use the best you can afford or find.

4 tablespoons heavy/double cream - you need this for the neufchatel or cream cheese but not if you use marscapone.

Also -  6 fluid ounces heavy/double cream - I really like Organic Valley Heavy Whipping Cream - really thick and delicious and whips so well - so whip it up and set aside.

Here's the hard part - put the cheese, white chocolate and small amount of cream if you are NOT using marscapone - in the top of a double boiler or in a glass bowl set over a pan of simmering water - wait until the chocolate seems completely melted - take off the heat and stir until well blended - allow to cool some and then put in the fridge covered overnight to set up perfectly!!

NOTE: If the chocolate is not completely melted before you stir - and this did happen to me - when you stir it it may get lumpy - not completely smooth - if this happens you need to let it cool quite a bit and then put in a blender and blend until completely smooth.

Day of devourment: A couple of hours before you are ready to assemble your tarts slice up the best strawberries you can avail yourself and macerate in a bowl with a few tablespoons of sugar  and set aside until needed.

Beautiful local strawberries - ahhhhh

Take your faboo white chocolate cream out of the fridge - STOP yourself from eating all of it now - dollop as much of this sublime nectar into either your mini tarts or your full size tart, smooth and cover with as many strawberries and strawberry juice as you feel necessary!!

EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy July 4th everyone!!!

This post is part of the Tea Time Treats challenge hosted by Lavender and Lovage
in collaboration with What Kate Baked

 http://wp.me/p287Dn-566